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NEW YORK — Pia Hand’s apartment in the Rockaways in Queens still lacks heat, and the walls are
infested with mold from Sandy’s storm surge.

But for two weeks, Hand’s living conditions were stunningly different: a hotel room on the 26th
floor of the Doubletree Hilton in Manhattan’s financial district, with daily maid service and a
complimentary chocolate-chip cookie — warm from the oven — every afternoon.

“The bed is nice and fluffy,” said Hand, 54, on a recent afternoon. “It just feels good to have
a home base.”

In the wake of superstorm Sandy, she was one of 1,000 storm evacuees being temporarily housed by
the city in 416 rooms across 29 hotels, most of them in Manhattan. The victims, many of whom were
in noisy, chaotic shelters during the storm’s immediate aftermath, then have the almost Oz-like
experience of waking up in some of the city’s most-desirable hotels.

The city shells out as much as $295 a night for a room, particularly in the costlier precincts
in Manhattan, and in a few cases, more than $300 a night.

But although the hotel stays have been a balm for frazzled families and individuals, they are no
panacea.

For one thing, many of the hotels that have set aside blocks of rooms for storm victims do not
use Frette linens or leave chocolates on pillows. Among the properties in the quickly assembled
network are the Harlem YMCA, the Best Western Kennedy Airport and the LaGuardia Airport Hotel. City
officials insist that in some instances, they were able to negotiate below-market rates and are
paying less than $100 a night.

Moreover, the arrangement is highly temporary. Although city officials have not set a date by
which they hope to have all evacuees out of hotels, they are busy working on a longer-term housing
solution with private landlords and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. A plan
is expected to be announced soon.

Already, hotel guests face a final checkout. Hand, for instance, was required to leave the
Doubletree on Friday, at which time, she said, she was to begin receiving $1,000 a month directly
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for a temporary apartment.Still, the city is
gearing up for a new wave of evacuees who can no longer tolerate winter’s cold in their
storm-battered homes.

“We’re now in a phase where we are doing a lot of outreach and communication with people who
should not be in places without heat,” said Seth Diamond, commissioner of the city’s Department of
Homeless Services

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that scores of hotel rooms paid for by the
city had sat vacant since October, including about 120 at the Milford Plaza Hotel in midtown
Manhattan, at $295 a night. Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the supply of rooms. “We have hotel
rooms in advance, particularly now, because as you get toward the holiday season, the hotel
occupancy goes up, and if we need it — and I hope we don’t — we’re going to have those,” he said.

“It’s a
de minimus amount of money, but it just shows a proactive approach, I think, to preparing
for every eventuality.”